The forward who played the last match for the Lithuanian national team is sad: “We didn’t achieve the goal” | Sports

When the captain of the Lithuanian national ice hockey team, Nerijus Ališauskas, took the prize for the second place in the IB Championship in his hands in the middle of the field, he had no questions about who to hand the trophy to first.

It was Tadas Kumeliauskas, who, according to the last match of the tournament in Vilnius, finished his career in the national team, lifted the cup, but at that time it was not too pleasing.

“The goal was to win, but we didn’t achieve the goal. The mood is not very good. I wanted to end the championship on a good note. It didn’t work. It’s a pity”, said T. Kumeliauskas.

The Lithuanian ice hockey players fought fiercely, but lost 1:4 to the Ukrainian national team in a decisive match in the last round of the IB division, when two teams that had won until then met.

The Lithuanians had 18 shots on goal, the Ukrainians 25, but the match was not in favor of the hosts from the start, despite the support of the half-full stands.

“They are stronger today, but we were able to play with them, we had opportunities,” said T.Kumeliauskas. – I wouldn’t say they dominated. Just at the beginning of the match, we took penalty minutes, they converted, and it became difficult for us.

There were chances, we talked in the dressing room that we needed one quick goal to get back into the game. Just couldn’t earn it. At the end we took the goalkeeper off, we scored one goal, but there was little time left, we had to keep taking risks, and then we got another goal.”

The striker from Elektrėnai joined the Lithuanian national team as soon as he started his career and made his debut there before reaching adulthood.

T. Kumeliauskas, who even represented the national team at the age of 15, was among those who forged gold medals for the Lithuanian national team at the 2018 tournament in Kaunas and the way to the IA division, and there he contributed to the bronze won by the Lithuanians in 2022 – the highest result of all time in the history of Lithuanian ice hockey.

“When we won the bronze in the higher division and, of course, when we won the gold in Kaunas,” the forward noted when asked to single out his most vivid memories in the national team.

He himself had risen to a high level during his club career, scoring goals in the Finnish top league for three years.

hockey.lt photo/Tadas Kumeliauskas (TPS Kalpa)

On his long journey, the striker who represented clubs in the USA, Latvia, Russia, Kazakhstan and Germany played in Lithuania in recent years – first for Vilnius “7bet Hockey Punks”, and in the last season he became the national champion with his hometown team “Airwell Energija”.

In recent years, his main field of income was no longer ice hockey, so at the age of 33 he decided to end his career in the national team – this was announced publicly in the middle of the tournament in Vilnius.

“I haven’t played hockey professionally for a while, I have to combine work with hockey. In the last month, I was no longer at home, I had to start the day at six in the morning. From then until 10 p.m. i was somewhere I didn’t see the family, the children,” said T. Kumeliauskas.

Photo by Pauliaus Peleckis/BNS/Vilnius “Hockey Punks” championship party. Tadas Kumeliauskas (left)

With his goal in the match against Spain, he helped the Lithuanians to start in the championships in Vilnius last weekend. Teammates feel that the striker still has powder.

“We will try to persuade him to come back, because a player like Tadas Kumeliauskas is very important to us,” said Paulius Gintautas, who was recognized as the best player of the Lithuanian team at the tournament. “Maybe the summer will pass, the eyes for hockey will light up again.”

T.Kumeliauskas himself believes that next year the Lithuanian national team will be able to fight for the return to the IA division even without him.

“You see, second place, so we’re on the edge,” he said. “We didn’t succeed this year, maybe we’ll come back next year.”